EAST HAVEN — A man intentionally filled his house with natural gas, attempting to blow it up Tuesday afternoon, police said.

Michael Nettis, 43, entered the home he owns on Lenox Street and turned on the gas stove without igniting it, allowing the gas to fill the house, police said in a release. Around the same time, he sent threatening text messages to his wife, according to police.

Nettis sent pictures to his wife of the gas knobs turned on, explaining what he did. In the string of message Nettis sent his wife, he said, “I’m going to turn house into a bomb,” “Think I’m kidding” and “Everything is over as of today,” police said.

Nettis’s wife was at work while the incident took place, police said.

Police responded to the house on Lenox Street when they received a call from Nettis’s sister-in-law, who was babysitting there. The woman had briefly left the house and when she came back, she smelled gas throughout the house, police said.

Nettis’s brother-in-law said he was in the shower when Nettis entered the home to turn on the gas, according to police. When the brother-in-law got out of the shower he smelled the gas, immediately turning it off and opening all the windows to ventilate the place, police said.

The East Haven Fire Department responded after the woman’s call to further ventilate the house and check the gas levels within it.

Police apprehended Nettis later in Thomaston without further incident. Nettis was charged with first-degree attempted arson, first-degree threatening, first-degree reckless endangerment and second-degree breach of peace. He was held in lieu of $300,000 bail, according to police.